Ask any Vistage member “Who has been among the best speakers you’ve heard on increasing sales and profit margins?” and the name Jack Daly is always on every Vistage CEO’s list.

Jack has made over 500 presentations to the CEOs of our Vistage CEO Groups and has been a successful CEO in his own right. Jack has built six companies, selling two to Wall Street firms; led a sales force of 2,600 in hundreds of offices that created $42 million in profits in three years and was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young and ranked #10 on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing firms nationwide. In short, he’s been there and done it….and here’s how.

The key ingredient to increasing profits is enhancing sales management. Your sales force is only as good as your sales leadership. This workshop has been designed to make positive results happen through more profitable selling. A sampling of areas to be covered includes the following:

Recruiting top-selling professionals

Field sales coaching

Getting sales people committed to your business goals

Establishing and measuring minimum performance standards

Communication, team building, and recognition tactics

A CEO action agenda

The emphasis is on street-tested (not theory) sales management techniques that are immediately implementable and that show in enhanced profitability.

Value: Participants will benefit from this seminar by taking away at least five ideas they can incorporate into their business. Significantly more ideas are shared to ensure each business gets several key actions to implement. Many of the ideas are easily transferable to areas beyond sales; however, Daly’s examples are positioned from the sales perspective. A workbook with applicable forms, examples, and schedules will be provided to each participant. He presents solid ideas for building, managing, and monitoring a sales force and sales program.

Finding your next big thing is a lot more like “Finding Waldo” than you think. The ideas are out there waiting to be discovered – for those who are looking. This becomes especially true when you are in a world and marketplace that is changing as fast as it is today.

How to track down your next big idea? Here are 10 useful questions you can ask yourself to find the hidden clues to your next breakthrough:

1. This product should already exist (but it doesn’t). Is there something that you feel should exist in your marketplace?

2. There is a needlessly complicated and frustrating customer service. Can you remove friction from the customer service in a new and novel way (think Netflix)?

3. A resource or asset is priced too low. Are there arbitrage opportunities to acquire assets that will be worth more in the near future?

4. This is a good discovery, we’re just not sure for what, yet. Is there a technology or discovery that you see a killer use for, but nobody else does yet?

5. This should be everywhere, but it isn’t. Have you discovered a product/service or business model that should have a large market adoption, but doesn’t?

6. People have started using products/services in new ways, but don’t have the necessary support. Are people using products/services in ways that are not intended by the producer?

7. People shouldn’t want this product/service, but they do. Is there a product/service in your portfolio that seems to perform well, even though you didn’t predict it would?

8. People are using products/services that you aren’t offering or recommending. Are people using things even though you think they shouldn’t?

9. The product/service is selling well elsewhere, but not here. Is there a product or service in another part of the world that hasn’t reached your market yet?

10. The product/service shouldn’t be making so much money. Is there a product or service where the margins are much higher than you expected them to be?

How to apply it to your business

Make a habit (once a week) to ask yourself these questions. Better still; ask your entire team to answer them as well. It is the constant application of the model that will help you find your next breakthrough idea.

Just as birds flock and fish school, people tribe. A tribe is a naturally forming group of 20 to 150 people. Smaller companies can be a single tribe. In larger organizations, there can be many tribes; for instance, it is easy to spot the cultural difference between sales and engineering departments. Tribes also operate at different cultural stages, which can positively or negatively impact your results as an organization. A high performing tribe can be three to five times more productive.

Measuring Culture

How do leaders change their company culture and become a high performing tribe? Like the old joke about eating an elephant, the answer is one bite at a time. The bookTribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving OrganizationTribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization, is the result of a 10-year study of over 24,000 people. Authors Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright recognized culture strategies failed 70 percent of the time. In their inquiry as to why this occurred, they discovered Peter Drucker’s statement that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” was true.

One of the challenges to cultural change is that it has been difficult to measure and you can’t manage what you don’t measure. We can assess a culture by observing the language people in the tribe use in their everyday conversations. These observations can be classified into five different stages. The study found that the stages form a bell curve, with the majority of workplace tribes at Stage Three. By observing and classifying the people that work for you into these five stages, you will be able to lead them to the next highest level. The impact of moving a tribe up one level is an increase of three to five times in productivity and profits.

Research suggests the higher you go in an organization, the more EQ matters. In a study of more than 515 senior global executives, the most successful had the strongest emotional intelligence. (A recent Harvard University study reveals that 90% – 95% of one’s success in leadership positions in organizations is attributed to EQ or EI and only 5% to 10% to IQ.)

If you are a NYC based CEO or business owner, you may qualify to come to a complimentary workshop that Vistage Speaker Bob Anderson is giving in Manhattan. In this highly interactive and scientifically based presentation, Bob will present the four emotional abilities that are critical for effective leadership and personal and professional success. Experiencing the Mayer-Salvoy-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) Vistage members will be learn how well they:

Identify Emotions: Accurately recognize how you and those around you are feeling.

Using Emotions: Generate emotions and use emotions in cognitive tasks such as problem solving and creativity.

Understand Emotions: Understand complex emotions and emotional consequences, and how emotions transition from one stage to another.

Manage Emotions: Intelligently integrate the data of emotions in yourself and in others to devise effective strategies that help you achieve positive outcomes.

Why Does EI Matter to CEOs?

For much of the 20th Century, emotions and moods were thought to be superfluous to the workplace. Feelings were popularly considered to be illogical and detrimental to productivity. But emotions are not extraneous experiences that come upon us without good reason. Current research tells us that emotions are integral to our success in both our personal and professional lives. Emotions cannot be divorced from decision-making and problem solving as previously thought. Rather than interfering with good decision making, emotions are in fact necessary and critical for effective decisions (e.g. Damasio, 1994)

Emotions help people to cope, survive, and thrive in their environment. Without access to the signals and information conveyed by emotions, critical information can be missed, leading to decisions that could result in less desirable outcomes. The ability to accurately identify emotions in yourself and in other, and to effectively utilize this emotional data, is the essence of emotional intelligence. Gauging how a team is responding to change, determining whether to trust your gut feeling, or predicting how people with react to an idea area all emotionally-based skills

Particpants leave with techniques, strategies, and an action plan to develop the four EI Abilities. The MSCEIT report they receive as well as the developmental strategies allow Vistage members to continuously monitor and focus their EI development in order to realize desired personal and business results.

In business, you need the right business tools and know-how to be successful. I just watched and listened to The Lean Startup, a visual book summary from fellow Vistage member Steve Cunningham. In a nutshell, businesses need to build, measure, and learn as fast as possible to increase their chances to create a sustainable business. One crucial task is to create metrics that are actionable, accessible and audit-able.

If you are a NYC based CEO, business owner, or C-Level executive, you may qualify to come to a complimentary workshop that Kraig is giving in Manhattan. He will put easy-to-use management tools directly in your hands to make more money and improve your success immediately. These are “go-do-it” tools, not just more “how to” lessons.

In this workshop, you will learn the how and why of Key Indicators as well as methodologies for insuring that key executives can use them effectively.

For the first time in human history, there are four generations in the workforce. There are 44 million Traditionalists, 80 million Baby Boomers, 68 million Generation Xers and 72 million Millennials, or Gen Yers. There will be no escaping the demographic reality that in the very near future: 80 million retiring Baby Boomers and only 72 million Millennials to replace them. This will create an employee vacuum in the workforce, increasing demand and competition for Gen Y employees, and augmenting the challenges of leading a multigenerational workforce.Participants will walk away with actionable information regarding:

Generational Differences

Gen Y Challenges

Gen Y Strengths

Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y: Implementing five “magnet factors” that attract and keep the best of Gen Y in your workforce

Dr. Gustavo will identify for each participant his/her own organizational “magnet factor” strengths and challenges as well as identify immediate tactical steps s/he can take to overcome those “magnet factor” challenges. Given the reality of the demographics, every industry will be competing for the same people. Understanding and managing these factors will ensure success for the Vistage participants’ businesses.

Biography: Gustavo Grodnitzky has a Ph.D. in clinical and school psychology and has extensive experience in interpersonal communications, strategic planning, change management and development of organizational culture. He has been a consultant for corporations and individual executives, working with management and staff to increase their effectiveness and success at numerous Fortune 500, mid-sized and smaller companies. Dr. Gustavo has presented at a variety of national and international professional conferences, has written numerous manuscripts for publication and is often called on to review books and manuscripts prior to publication.

I laughed out loud when I read, “The 32 Dumbest Things That Real-Life Managers Said” in Geoffrey James blog. Here are my favorite top ten. Click the link to read all of them. They are funny because they are true! Which Tribal Leadership Stage do you think these managers are in?

“Am I the only one around here with half a brain?!”

“I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression your input would have any effect on my final decision.”

“Don’t worry, give it a try. You have nothing to fear but failure, demotion and termination.”

“I’m getting a new company car new week. Please call the dealer and ask him to delay the delivery until after Wednesday’s layoffs. I want to appear sensitive.”

“I don’t want to force this decision on you. It would be much easier if you just agree.”

“I’ve already made up my mind, but I am eager to hear everything you have to say on the matter.”

“I know there is a communication problem in my department. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“We have too many unproductive meetings. Please put aside next Wednesday to attend an all-employee staff meeting to discuss this issue.”

“We do things democratically in my department…and I’m the ruler.”

“Whenever you have an idea, discuss it with me first, and if I feel it is a good idea, I’ll tell the others. You must learn to let me get credit for your good ideas. That’s what team work is all about.”